Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media. For example, spamming and the sending of unwanted data may occur in the context of instant messaging, Web search engines, mobile phone messaging, Internet forums, and junk fax transmissions, etc.
E-mail spam, also known as unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE) or unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients. Instant Messaging spam uses instant messaging systems to send unwanted messages to an indiscriminate set of recipients. Mobile phone spam is directed at text messaging services of mobile phones.
Often, electronic messaging systems employ spam filters and other content blocking filters to alleviate incoming spam messages and unwanted content. However, electronic messages that contain text embedded in images most often escape through spam and other content blocking filters. Furthermore, the percentage of spam messages is constantly increasing. There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.